Shankar Vedantam
Shankar Vedantam is the host and creator of Hidden Brain. The Hidden Brain podcast receives more than three million downloads per week. The Hidden Brain radio show is distributed by NPR and featured on nearly 400 public radio stations around the United States.
Vedantam was NPR's social science correspondent between 2011 and 2020, and spent 10 years as a reporter at The Washington Post. From 2007 to 2009, he was also a columnist, and wrote the Department of Human Behavior column for the Post.
Vedantam and Hidden Brain have been recognized with the Edward R Murrow Award, and honors from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the International Society of Political Psychology, the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Association of Black Journalists, the Austen Riggs Center, the American Psychoanalytic Association, the Webby Awards, the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors, the South Asian Journalists Association, the Asian American Journalists Association, the Pennsylvania °µºÚ±¬ÁÏpaper Association, the American Public Health Association, the Templeton-Cambridge Fellowship on Science and Religion, and the Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellowship.
In 2009-2010, Vedantam served as a fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Vedantam is the author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Brain: How our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars and Save Our Lives. The book, published in 2010, described how unconscious biases influence people. He is also co-author, with Bill Mesler, of the 2021 book Useful Delusions: The Power and Paradox of the Self-Deceiving Brain.
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Economic disruption has been a big part of the political conversation. Free trade might be a net benefit to the U.S., but there are large areas of the country that bear the brunt of negative effects. -
Research collaborations often involve scientists from all over the world. A new study looks at plane ticket prices, and how they relate to the direction of science. -
Researchers found by telling people the risk of HIV is lower than they thought, they get people to act in safer ways. But when people think the risk is very high, they sometimes act less responsibly. -
To help ex-felons land jobs, many states have enacted a law that prevents employers from asking applicants to check a box to reveal criminal history. But these laws may not have the intended effect.
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Why do so few women sign up for careers in science, technology, engineering and math? Research suggests having few women in college in these fields and in technology companies creates a vicious cycle.
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Researchers examine the effects of student debt on the personal choices that young adults have to make. For example, decisions about whether to get married or when to have children.
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This week on Hidden Brain, Shankar talks to Google's Laszlo Bock. Insider tips and insights about what works — and what doesn't work — in recruiting, motivating, and retaining a talented workforce. -
A new research study finds that students exposed to their very best peers became discouraged about their own abilities and performance — and were more likely to drop out.
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Adam Grant, author of Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, tells us what makes an original, how parents can nurture originality in their children, and its potential downside. -
Derek Amato wasn't born a musical savant. He became one—almost instantly—after hitting his head on the bottom of a swimming pool.
